Attention Assist Helps Sleepy Drivers

by Mark R

On the Volvo S80 is a new safety feature that I have never seen before, but I’m guessing it is probably needed. Attention Assist has an interesting feature that can detect whether the driver is nodding off, which is a cause of many an accident.

The Mercedes-Benz S500 as well as the new E-class of the model have this Attention Assist safety feature, which uses seventy parameters that signal to the car that the driver is drifting into slumberland. Granted, I have no idea why seventy is needed, because I believe that the only possible indicator would be on the steering wheel.

In fact, how can a car tell when you are nodding off? Maybe they have a “power nod” detector that I don’t know about. If you’re not familiar with the “power nod”, just think back to college when that boring professor put you to sleep, but you tried to stop yourself. The end result was classmates in the back shouting “whiplash”!

If the car does detect your drowsiness, the indicator light will come out. Oddly enough, a picture of a cup of coffee appears on the dash. So what is this, some sort of signal that you need caffeine? If so, I would prefer having a Mountain Dew can in there in lieu of the coffee cup. I’m not a big coffee achiever guy.

Now, if the car has a GPS, it could give the driver directions to the next coffee shop. For me, there would have to be some compass pointing to the nearest Mountain Dew machine.